Britain is falling behind the rest of the world in narrowing the career divide between men and women, according to a comprehensive report.

The study by the respected World Economic Forum think tank found that the UK has slipped two places down to 13th in its gender equality table in the past year, being overtaken by Latvia and Sri Lanka.

It has now fallen five places since the rankings of how equal the sexes are in terms of education, health, pay and political power were first published three years ago.

The findings echo a report by the UK's equalities watchdog earlier this year that claimed the number of women in the most important jobs is falling after decades of progress, as they hit a "concrete ceiling" of discrimination.

Women still earn on average 12.6 per cent less than men in Britain.

The World Economic Forum said women around the world now have almost the same access to health care and education as men.

But they still lag far behind in terms of their access to top corporate jobs and government posts.

"The world's women are nearly as educated and as healthy as men, but are nowhere to be found in terms of decision-making," said Saadia Zahidi.

"Given that women have almost closed the gap with men on health and education, it is a waste of their talents if they are not catching up in economics and politics."

The think tank uses United Nations data to work out how evenly states allocate resources between men and women, looking at literacy levels and life expectancy as well as salaries and representation in parliament.

It calculates a score for each country, with 1 representing complete equalities between the genders and 0 meaning total inequality.

Norway comes top with 0.8239, knocking Finland off the top spot.

The UK is 13th with 0.7366, just ahead of Switzerland and France but one place below Sri Lanka.

The United States comes 27th, leapfrogging its neighbour Canada for the first time after more women were appointed to positions of power.

Muslim countries had some of the lowest equality ratings.

The 130-country list is propped up by Saudia Arabia - where the strict interpretation of Islamic law means it is illegal for women even to be seen in the same company as a man who is not a close relative - Chad and Yemen.